Migrations With Minimal Downtime

Data migrations fall into two categories, moving existing application environments to new hardware or operating systems, or moving then to a new target back-end database engine. We can help with either!

Server Migrations

Consider the following questions:

• Do you have migration projects, such as moving to a newer server operating system or from Physical to Virtual, filling up your to-do list?
• Have you been putting off your migration projects because you think migration is too difficult?
• Do you hate thinking about the testing requirements for your migration project?
• Are you worried about how much downtime a migration project will require?
• Are you worried about how much of YOUR time a migration project will require?

What if we told you that "migration" really isn't a dirty word, but rather that we can help with your migration needs, completing multiple migrations quickly and easily -- and most importantly -- cheaply?

This is not a pipe dream! Goldstar Software specializes in all things related to the Actian PSQL/Zen database, and our customers often need to migrate environments from one hardware or software platform to another with minimal downtime. We have the tools and the expertise to streamline the process, eliminate loads of stress on you, the system administrator. We have successfully helped our customers to:

• Migrate from old hardware to new hardware
• Migrate from physical to virtual machines
• Migrate from virtual to physical machines
• Migrate from Windows Server 2003/2008/2012/2016 to 2019/2022/2025
• Migrate from old PSQL database engines to new Zen database engines
• Migrate from an old storage infrastructure to a new storage infrastructure or SAN

More importantly, we can perform these migrations with near-zero downtime, and at a very low cost! Do you wonder how we do it? Contact Bill Bach at Goldstar Software for more information about this solution!

Migrations to Different Databases

With Actian's recent policy changes, we recognize that many developers are seeking migration solutions to completely different database platforms. Goldstar Software is quickly ramping up on our database vendor migration services to fill this demand. At this time, the following solutions are available:

• BTR2SQL: The BTR2SQL solution from Mertech Data Systems is one way to quickly move your existing Btrieve application from the Actian database to another SQL database, such as SQL Server, Postgres, or Oracle. This solution provides a translation layer so that you can migrate your data AND applications (in most cases, unchanged) to a new database engine in rapid succession, providing your developers with the time needed to properly re-write each module (one at a time, even) to the new native target database.
• FairCom DB: The FairCom DB, formerly known ages ago as c-tree, is very similar to the Btrieve environment. FairCom offers their ISAM RTG solution to Btrieve developers looking to quickly move their environment from the Btrieve API to the c-tree API by offering a direct replacement for the Actian interface DLL's. After a quick data conversion process and then by replacing a few other files, you can be completely running on the FairCom DB with minimal or no coding changes.
• Data Migrations Only: Goldstar Software has custom tools that can be used to migrate data from one environment to another. We hae posted a new paper here on how to quickly migrate data from Zen to Postgres using our utilities, and we expect to create similar papers (and update our tools) for other database targets as time goes on. These tools can streamline the entire process, reducing the effort of your own development team to migrate your end users' data sets, allowing them to focus on updating the application instead. These tools are even powerful enough to allow for schema changes, adding or removing fields, and even changing data types on the fly.

Again, Contact Bill Bach at Goldstar Software for more information about our solutions and experience in this area!